Chapter 16 - In the Darkness of the Night

When Tarzan of the Apes realized that he was in the
grip of the great jaws of a crocodile he did not, as an
ordinary man might have done, give up all hope and resign
himself to his fate.

Instead, he filled his lungs with air before the huge reptile
dragged him beneath the surface, and then, with all the might
of his great muscles, fought bitterly for freedom. But out of
his native element the ape-man was too greatly handicapped
to do more than excite the monster to greater speed as it
dragged its prey swiftly through the water.

Tarzan's lungs were bursting for a breath of pure fresh air.
He knew that he could survive but a moment more, and in
the last paroxysm of his suffering he did what he could to
avenge his own death.

His body trailed out beside the slimy carcass of his captor,
and into the tough armour the ape-man attempted to plunge
his stone knife as he was borne to the creature's horrid den.

His efforts but served to accelerate the speed of the crocodile,
and just as the ape-man realized that he had reached the limit
of his endurance he felt his body dragged to a muddy bed and
his nostrils rise above the water's surface. All about him
was the blackness of the pit--the silence of the grave.

For a moment Tarzan of the Apes lay gasping for breath
upon the slimy, evil-smelling bed to which the animal had
borne him. Close at his side he could feel the cold, hard
plates of the creatures coat rising and falling as though with
spasmodic efforts to breathe.

For several minutes the two lay thus, and then a sudden
convulsion of the giant carcass at the man's side, a tremor,
and a stiffening brought Tarzan to his knees beside the crocodile.
To his utter amazement he found that the beast was dead.
The slim knife had found a vulnerable spot in the scaly armour.

Staggering to his feet, the ape-man groped about the reeking,
oozy den. He found that he was imprisoned in a subterranean
chamber amply large enough to have accommodated a dozen or
more of the huge animals such as the one that had
dragged him thither.

He realized that he was in the creature's hidden nest far
under the bank of the stream, and that doubtless the only
means of ingress or egress lay through the submerged opening
through which the crocodile had brought him.

His first thought, of course, was of escape, but that he
could make his way to the surface of the river beyond and
then to the shore seemed highly improbable. There might be
turns and windings in the neck of the passage, or, most to
be feared, he might meet another of the slimy inhabitants of
the retreat upon his journey outward.

Even should he reach the river in safety, there was still the
danger of his being again attacked before he could effect a
safe landing. Still there was no alternative, and, filling his
lungs with the close and reeking air of the chamber, Tarzan
of the Apes dived into the dark and watery hole which he
could not see but had felt out and found with his feet and legs.

The leg which had been held within the jaws of the crocodile
was badly lacerated, but the bone had not been broken,
nor were the muscles or tendons sufficiently injured to render
it useless. It gave him excruciating pain, that was all.

But Tarzan of the Apes was accustomed to pain, and gave
it no further thought when he found that the use of his legs
was not greatly impaired by the sharp teeth of the monster.

Rapidly he crawled and swam through the passage which
inclined downward and finally upward to open at last into
the river bottom but a few feet from the shore line. As the
ape-man reached the surface he saw the heads of two great
crocodiles but a short distance from him. They were making
rapidly in his direction, and with a superhuman effort the
man struck out for the overhanging branches of a near-by tree.

Nor was he a moment too soon, for scarcely had he drawn
himself to the safety of the limb than two gaping mouths
snapped venomously below him. For a few minutes Tarzan
rested in the tree that had proved the means of his salvation.
His eyes scanned the river as far down-stream as the tortuous
channel would permit, but there was no sign of the Russian
or his dugout.

When he had rested and bound up his wounded leg he started
on in pursuit of the drifting canoe. He found himself
upon the opposite of the river to that at which he had
entered the stream, but as his quarry was upon the bosom
of the water it made little difference to the ape-man
upon which side he took up the pursuit.

To his intense chagrin he soon found that his leg was more
badly injured than he had thought, and that its condition
seriously impeded his progress. It was only with the greatest
difficulty that he could proceed faster than a walk upon the
ground, and in the trees he discovered that it not only impeded
his progress, but rendered travelling distinctly dangerous.

From the old negress, Tambudza, Tarzan had gathered a suggestion
that now filled his mind with doubts and misgivings. When the
old woman had told him of the child's death she had also added
that the white woman, though grief-stricken, had confided to her
that the baby was not hers.

Tarzan could see no reason for believing that Jane could
have found it advisable to deny her identity or that of the
child; the only explanation that he could put upon the matter
was that, after all, the white woman who had accompanied
his son and the Swede into the jungle fastness of the interior
had not been Jane at all.

The more he gave thought to the problem, the more firmly
convinced he became that his son was dead and his wife still
safe in London, and in ignorance of the terrible fate that had
overtaken her first-born.

After all, then, his interpretation of Rokoff's sinister taunt
had been erroneous, and he had been bearing the burden of a
double apprehension needlessly--at least so thought the ape-man.
From this belief he garnered some slight surcease from the
numbing grief that the death of his little son had thrust upon him.

And such a death! Even the savage beast that was the real
Tarzan, inured to the sufferings and horrors of the grim jungle,
shuddered as he contemplated the hideous fate that had
overtaken the innocent child.

As he made his way painfully towards the coast, he let his
mind dwell so constantly upon the frightful crimes which the
Russian had perpetrated against his loved ones that the great
scar upon his forehead stood out almost continuously in the
vivid scarlet that marked the man's most relentless and bestial
moods of rage. At times he startled even himself and sent the
lesser creatures of the wild jungle scampering to their hiding
places as involuntary roars and growls rumbled from his throat.

Could he but lay his hand upon the Russian!

Twice upon the way to the coast bellicose natives ran
threateningly from their villages to bar his further progress,
but when the awful cry of the bull-ape thundered upon their
affrighted ears, and the great white giant charged bellowing
upon them, they had turned and fled into the bush, nor ventured
thence until he had safely passed.

Though his progress seemed tantalizingly slow to the ape-man
whose idea of speed had been gained by such standards as the
lesser apes attain, he made, as a matter of fact, almost as
rapid progress as the drifting canoe that bore Rokoff on
ahead of him, so that he came to the bay and within sight of
the ocean just after darkness had fallen upon the same day that
Jane Clayton and the Russian ended their flights from the interior.

The darkness lowered so heavily upon the black river and
the encircling jungle that Tarzan, even with eyes accustomed
to much use after dark, could make out nothing a few yards
from him. His idea was to search the shore that night for
signs of the Russian and the woman who he was certain must
have preceded Rokoff down the Ugambi. That the Kincaid
or other ship lay at anchor but a hundred yards from him he
did not dream, for no light showed on board the steamer.

Even as he commenced his search his attention was suddenly
attracted by a noise that he had not at first perceived--
the stealthy dip of paddles in the water some distance from
the shore, and about opposite the point at which he stood.
Motionless as a statue he stood listening to the faint sound.

Presently it ceased, to be followed by a shuffling noise that
the ape-man's trained ears could interpret as resulting from
but a single cause--the scraping of leather-shod feet upon the
rounds of a ship's monkey-ladder. And yet, as far as he could
see, there was no ship there--nor might there be one within
a thousand miles.

As he stood thus, peering out into the darkness of the
cloud-enshrouded night, there came to him from across the
water, like a slap in the face, so sudden and unexpected was
it, the sharp staccato of an exchange of shots and then the
scream of a woman.

Wounded though he was, and with the memory of his recent
horrible experience still strong upon him, Tarzan of the Apes
did not hesitate as the notes of that frightened cry rose shrill
and piercing upon the still night air. With a bound he cleared
the intervening bush--there was a splash as the water closed
about him--and then, with powerful strokes, he swam out
into the impenetrable night with no guide save the memory
of an illusive cry, and for company the hideous denizens
of an equatorial river.

The boat that had attracted Jane's attention as she stood
guard upon the deck of the Kincaid had been perceived by
Rokoff upon one bank and Mugambi and the horde upon the other.
The cries of the Russian had brought the dugout first to him,
and then, after a conference, it had been turned toward the
Kincaid, but before ever it covered half the distance between
the shore and the steamer a rifle had spoken from the latter's
deck and one of the sailors in the bow of the canoe had crumpled
and fallen into the water.

After that they went more slowly, and presently, when Jane's rifle
had found another member of the party, the canoe withdrew to the shore,
where it lay as long as daylight lasted.

The savage, snarling pack upon the opposite shore had been
directed in their pursuit by the black warrior, Mugambi,
chief of the Wagambi. Only he knew which might be foe and
which friend of their lost master.

Could they have reached either the canoe or the Kincaid
they would have made short work of any whom they found
there, but the gulf of black water intervening shut them off
from farther advance as effectually as though it had been the
broad ocean that separated them from their prey.

Mugambi knew something of the occurrences which had led up to
the landing of Tarzan upon Jungle Island and the pursuit of
the whites up the Ugambi. He knew that his savage master
sought his wife and child who had been stolen by the wicked
white man whom they had followed far into the interior and
now back to the sea.

He believed also that this same man had killed the great
white giant whom he had come to respect and love as he had
never loved the greatest chiefs of his own people. And so in
the wild breast of Mugambi burned an iron resolve to win to
the side of the wicked one and wreak vengeance upon him
for the murder of the ape-man.

But when he saw the canoe come down the river and take in Rokoff,
when he saw it make for the Kincaid, he realized that only by
possessing himself of a canoe could he hope to transport the beasts
of the pack within striking distance of the enemy.

So it happened that even before Jane Clayton fired the first shot into
Rokoff's canoe the beasts of Tarzan had disappeared into the jungle.

After the Russian and his party, which consisted of Paulvitch
and the several men he had left upon the Kincaid to attend
to the matter of coaling, had retreated before her fire,
Jane realized that it would be but a temporary respite from
their attentions which she had gained, and with the conviction
came a determination to make a bold and final stroke for
freedom from the menacing threat of Rokoff's evil purpose.

With this idea in view she opened negotiations with the two
sailors she had imprisoned in the forecastle, and having
forced their consent to her plans, upon pain of death should
they attempt disloyalty, she released them just as darkness
closed about the ship.

With ready revolver to compel obedience, she let them up
one by one, searching them carefully for concealed weapons
as they stood with hands elevated above their heads. Once
satisfied that they were unarmed, she set them to work cutting
the cable which held the Kincaid to her anchorage, for her bold
plan was nothing less than to set the steamer adrift and float
with her out into the open sea, there to trust to the mercy
of the elements, which she was confident would be no more
merciless than Nikolas Rokoff should he again capture her.

There was, too, the chance that the Kincaid might be sighted
by some passing ship, and as she was well stocked with
provisions and water--the men had assured her of this fact--
and as the season of storm was well over, she had every
reason to hope for the eventual success of her plan.

The night was deeply overcast, heavy clouds riding
low above the jungle and the water--only to the west,
where the broad ocean spread beyond the river's mouth,
was there a suggestion of lessening gloom.

It was a perfect night for the purposes of the work in hand.

Her enemies could not see the activity aboard the ship nor
mark her course as the swift current bore her outward into
the ocean. Before daylight broke the ebb-tide would have
carried the Kincaid well into the Benguela current which
flows northward along the coast of Africa, and, as a south
wind was prevailing, Jane hoped to be out of sight of the
mouth of the Ugambi before Rokoff could become aware of
the departure of the steamer.

Standing over the labouring seamen, the young woman
breathed a sigh of relief as the last strand of the cable parted
and she knew that the vessel was on its way out of the maw
of the savage Ugambi.

With her two prisoners still beneath the coercing influence
of her rifle, she ordered them upon deck with the intention
of again imprisoning them in the forecastle; but at length she
permitted herself to be influenced by their promises of loyalty
and the arguments which they put forth that they could be of
service to her, and permitted them to remain above.

For a few minutes the Kincaid drifted rapidly with the current,
and then, with a grinding jar, she stopped in midstream.
The ship had run upon a low-lying bar that splits the channel
about a quarter of a mile from the sea.

For a moment she hung there, and then, swinging round until
her bow pointed toward the shore, she broke adrift once more.

At the same instant, just as Jane Clayton was congratulating
herself that the ship was once more free, there fell upon
her ears from a point up the river about where the Kincaid
had been anchored the rattle of musketry and a woman's
scream--shrill, piercing, fear-laden.

The sailors heard the shots with certain conviction that
they announced the coming of their employer, and as they
had no relish for the plan that would consign them to the
deck of a drifting derelict, they whispered together a hurried
plan to overcome the young woman and hail Rokoff and their
companions to their rescue.

It seemed that fate would play into their hands, for with
the reports of the guns Jane Clayton's attention had been
distracted from her unwilling assistants, and instead of
keeping one eye upon them as she had intended doing, she ran
to the bow of the Kincaid to peer through the darkness toward
the source of the disturbance upon the river's bosom.

Seeing that she was off her guard, the two sailors crept
stealthily upon her from behind.

The scraping upon the deck of the shoes of one of them
startled the girl to a sudden appreciation of her danger,
but the warning had come too late.

As she turned, both men leaped upon her and bore her
to the deck, and as she went down beneath them she saw,
outlined against the lesser gloom of the ocean, the figure of
another man clamber over the side of the Kincaid.

After all her pains her heroic struggle for freedom had failed.
With a stifled sob she gave up the unequal battle.